How a Hospice Nurse is Born

Teresa Yarbrough, a registered nurse at Alive Hospice in Nashville, talks about how her early experiences shaped her desire to become a hospice nurse.

Over twenty years later, I met a woman who was a hospice nurse. I curiously asked her to tell me what she did exactly. What did her work look like? She began to describe to me how she cared for patients during their tender transition time of dying. As I listened, I was instantaneously transported back to my Grandpa’s bedside the night I stayed with him very near the time of his death. The sacredness of that time had left an indelible imprint on my life. Just as quickly as that memory came flooding into my heart and mind, an intense desire to pursue hospice nursing as a career was birthed in me.

Also read “A Gentle Death: Five Months with Hospice”, written by the wife of a hospice patient after his death in 2002. Barbara O’Neil Ross’ husband, John, spent over five months in the care of Hospice of Cambridge in MA. Barbara’s nine-part series captures the essence of hospice care and the various roles the hospice team can play in the lives of the dying and their loved ones.